


Confessions of a Corpse

by BeMoreBroadway



Series: Looping Timelines [1]
Category: A Heist With Markiplier, Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series)
Genre: Chapter 15 is a little suggestive, Female DA, Freeform, Gen, I'm sorry if anyone's OOC., My DA has a bit of a backstory that'll be revealed bit by bit, Not-so-mute DA, Possession, Slight hints of Dark x the DA, Warfy boy makes a cameo during the WKM portion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 11,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27523270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeMoreBroadway/pseuds/BeMoreBroadway
Summary: The District Attorney didn't want to die.The District Attorney didn't want to disappear.The District Attorney wanted only one thing.They wanted ANSWERS.And they'd do anything to get them.
Relationships: Damien | The Mayor/Y/N | The District Attorney (Who Killed Markiplier?), Darkiplier/The District Attorney
Series: Looping Timelines [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017165
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	1. Shot through the heart (and into the void)

“It was an accident! I swear!”

Those were the last words I heard. My body fell backward, over the railing, and I was suddenly in freefall. It didn’t last long, though. Before I could even comprehend how far my fall was, my body slammed into the hardwood floor and my vision went black. The last sound I heard? A sickening crack. I was certain that the back of my skull had either completely shattered or imploded.

…

I awoke in a void. Darkness surrounded me. I looked down and noticed that not only was my suit monochrome and devoid of the blood that should have been staining it - I had just been shot, after all - but my skin was the same way. I blinked once, and the void seemed to warp around me. I noticed two flickering blobs of color. One was blue. The other? Red. I slowly managed to move my limbs and approach them. The blobs of color suddenly morphed into people, but not just any people. Two people I recognized. 

“...Damien?” I questioned. “Celine?” 

The mayor jolted in surprise and whipped around to face me. He looked just as composed and put-together as I had last seen him, save for a few stray strands of hair that hung in his eyes. The seer looked at me like she was seeing a ghost. Which, judging by my monochromatic state, I probably looked like one. The two siblings looked at each other for a moment, communicating strictly with their eyes - a talent I myself also possessed, what with being the youngest of three siblings - and before I could open my mouth and speak again, Celine held up her hand. 

“Look, I know you have questions, and I can’t answer everything right now,” she said. “Just know that Mark took everything from us in his twisted quest of vengeance.” I blinked at her, confused. Vengeance? She pursed her lips and interlaced her fingers before continuing. “But death does not mean the same thing here.” Damien raked his hair back, pushing the stray strands away before turning to me. 

“What Celine means by that is… This doesn’t have to be the end. You’re still trapped in here the same as us, but your body is still out there. Broken as it may be, it’s still out there.” He said, gesturing to me. I placed one hand on where my bullet wound should have been. Right on my chest. Right on my _heart_. I vaguely realized that my body was indeed still laying where it had landed, but after a moment of thinking, I shook my head. 

“It’s useless,” I said. “I’m dead for fuck’s sake.” Celine chuckled a bit and reached out, patting my shoulder with one gloved hand. She felt solid. 

“Mark’s not the only one who can use this place to his benefit,” she said. “The same way I brought you here is the same way that I can send you back.” I gaped at her. 

“So...you brought me here? To save my soul?” I asked. She made an ‘ehhh?’ noise and shrugged slightly, dragging her bottom lip between her teeth. Damien stepped closer, placing his hand on my other shoulder. He, too, felt solid, and I felt a surge of warmth shooting from both of their hands into my body. 

“But you can’t survive on your own. You’re dead, after all. My friend, the Colonel sought to that…” He sounded bitter. Celine shook her head, her voice tinged with pain and concern. 

“You can’t blame him. Honestly, he’s a good man... But he’s dangerous now.” Damien and I sighed in unison. 

“How do I know that any of this is even real? This sounds absolutely-” I was cut off by Damien squeezing my shoulder. 

“I know this all sounds crazy. Honestly, I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” he chuckled sheepishly, “but I know that I trust Celine. And if you trust us…” He placed his free hand against my cheek, turning my head to face him. 

“Just let me in. We can fix this. Together.” He whispered. I blinked at him, my eyes wide. If I could still blush, I would have. Who’d have thought that I, the District Attorney, would be within kissing distance of the Mayor of all people? After a moment of simply staring at him, Celine whistled and snapped her fingers from outside my peripheral vision, finally motivating me to tear my gaze away from Damien and look over at her. 

“I won’t force this upon you. You have a choice here,” she explained. “Just know this is the only way that you can escape. So what do you say? Do you trust us?” She held out her hand. I took a slow, long, deep breath. I didn’t want to be stuck in this void. I wanted to be back in my body. 

I suddenly felt something burning inside me. Like how people say that they feel the flames of desire. Well, it wasn’t desire I was feeling. It was something more...malicious. I wanted revenge. I wanted revenge on Mark for putting the three of us in this situation. I steeled my jaw and grabbed her hand. 

“I trust you both,” I said coldly. She gave me a small smile. 

“Just relax,” she said gently. Damien placed his hand on my shoulder, having walked up behind me, and gently squeezed it. 

“This’ll work. I promise,” he whispered. I closed my eyes and felt myself get almost launched backward, just like I had when I fell to my death.


	2. Awake and alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The DA wakes up to the sight of vaulted ceilings and an old friend...but things are never as they seem.

…

I opened my eyes to see the vaulted ceiling of Markipler Manor staring back at me. I slowly, painfully slowly shifted to sit up, then glanced over at a chair that hadn’t been there before. The Colonel was sitting in it, staring at me with wide eyes. I moved to scramble away from him - I didn’t want to get shot again - but he held up his hands in surrender.

“Oh! No, no! It’s okay. I-I thought you were dead,” he said, sputtering. “I-I-I mean, of course you’re not dead! How could you be dead? I-I-I wouldn’t have killed you. I-I didn’t kill you. I mean, of course… I-I…” I shifted to stand completely and placed a hand on his shoulder, offering him as sympathetic of a smile as I could. He looked up at me, looking to be on the verge of tears, then smiled. 

“Of course. I didn’t kill anybody. It was all a joke! Of course, it’s all a joke! Were you in on this?” He asked, looking around a bit. “Did Damien put you up to this? Of course he did! Damien, where are you, you rapscallion? Where are you? Celine? Ah, sun, come out now! It was good, it was good! You almost had me! Ha! Ha-ha! Celine?” He had stumbled off deeper into the manor at this point. I wiped my eyes, feeling the sting of tears. I knew he had lost it. I knew that I had just inadvertently driven Damien’s closest friend into madness. All because I, a corpse, got up and started moving. I glanced down at Damien's cane, which was laying on the ground near the chair, reached down, and grabbed it.

As soon as my hand closed around it, I felt something wrench control away from me.

I wasn't moving my body anymore.

Something else was.

It wasn't Damien or Celine, either.

It was something... _ **darker.**_

Helpless, all I could do was watch through my own eyes as I picked up the cane, examined it for a moment, then glanced at a mirror that was close by. I cracked my neck - wincing as I heard a couple of bones almost snap - and seemed to glare into the mirror. I suddenly realized that I was staring at myself.

Not through my own eyes, though.

Through the mirror.

I placed my hands against the glass, my eyes wide in horror as the person on the other side morphed into the spitting image of Damien. They gave me a sinister smirk and walked away from the mirror.

I slammed my fist against the glass, cracking it, and screamed as much as I could in enraged terror, my voice sounding like a banshee's mournful cry.

_What had I done?!_


	3. Charlotte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The DA gets themselves a new body.

…

It was weird to be breathing again.

I had finally, _finally_ managed to break free from the mirror - merging with and trusting Celine, Damien, and whatever supernatural force haunted that damned house was a horrible idea - and found myself a perfectly willing host. A dying girl, to be exact. Stricken with illness. I had managed to get to her before she passed, and we negotiated. She wanted to just pass on peacefully, without the pain that kept plaguing her, and I wanted a new body.

This time, my motivation wasn’t simple revenge. No, I had abandoned that quest after realizing that the _thing_ in my body wanted nothing more than to tear the world apart. 

Now I wanted answers. 

That was all I wanted. 

Answers. 

She agreed, and I woke up a few hours after she was pronounced dead. I managed to convince the people who were about to drain my organs _not_ to do such a thing, and I was allowed to leave without too much trouble. Charlotte seemed like she was a wonderful girl. I felt slightly guilty about using her body as a vessel, but at least our deal was made on amicable terms. Not backstabbing.

I flexed my fingers, marveling at just how small my hands were. In hindsight, they weren't different from my old body, but I pushed that thought away and started my journey to try and find some truth about what happened after I died. Where was my original body now? Where was that scumbag entity that stole it from me? What happened to Celine and Damien? What happened to Wiliam? Did he really go insane, or was that just something my mind was conjuring up to scare me?

... Deep down in my heart, I knew the answer to that last question.

He had lost it.

Completely.

And I didn't even know if I'd see him again.

I could only hope that he was safe and in a better position than I was.


	4. The heist begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The DA - now going by Charlotte - meets someone who seems just a bit too familiar...and begins to play her part in the heist of a century.

...

A few days of being alive later, I ran into an old enemy.

Or, at least, someone who reminded me of an old enemy.

They were dead ringers for each other, the Actor - that **_bastard_** \- and this new guy, Mark.  We had talked - well, he did most of the talking. I just nodded and played along - and not too long after that, I had landed in my current situation. I peered through the bush I was crouched in, waited until the security guard had passed by, then exited the bush and looked up at the building in front of me. It was a large museum. I had never seen anything like it, even when I was alive. I took a slow, deep breath - damn, it felt _good_ to do that again - and pulled out the grappling hook my partner had saddled me with. 

Stepping back, I aimed up at the ledge that was above me and pulled the trigger, sending me flying into the air. I landed on the rooftop with catlike grace and made my way over to an air duct, removing the cover and crawling inside. I was a little surprised that I had managed to do this but chalked it up to my new skinny frame. I slowly crawled through the ducts - eat your heart out, Ethan Hunt - and dropped down onto a walkway where my partner had instructed us to meet. As I slowly looked around, taking in my new surroundings, I suddenly heard a Tarzan yell and the sound of glass shattering. I whipped around, raising my grappling hook in defense, only to breathe a soft sigh of relief as my partner landed on all fours down in front of me.

“All right, we’re in,” he said, shifting to stand in a crouch and brushing himself off. “You know the plan, right?” I opened my mouth to speak before being cut off by a short snicker. “What am I saying? You practically wrote it. Everything you need is in your bag, so let’s synchronize our watches on three.” My eyes widened. He never mentioned needing a watch! Before I could say anything, he pressed the button on his watch. 

“Three! Perfect. Now, stick to the plan and you’ll be just fine,” he said, then glared at me almost authoritatively. “But if you deviate from it for even a single moment, I won’t come back for you.” I gaped at him. He couldn’t be serious, right? Maybe this guy and that rat bastard were the same people after all… He then gave me a grin and pulled out his grapple gun, standing up. 

“Okay? Good luck!” 

And with that, he was off.


	5. Steak, galleries, and baseballs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte realizes that she might have bitten off more than she could chew. And why does this all feel so familiar...?

I sighed slightly and opened my bag, pulling out a rather well-done steak. I gave it a cursory sniff and groaned. 

“Eugh. How long has this been in here?” I muttered. I stood up and turned to walk down the path, but was stopped by someone shouting. 

“Hey!” 

Startled, I whipped around, only to come face-to-face with a security guard. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asked. I fumbled for a reply, holding the steak out like it was a weapon, and feeling my hands grow clammy with sweat. Son of a bitch, was I really going to get shot again?! Once was enough, dammit! He looked at the steak and immediately raised his weapon. 

“Oh, no! Not the old steak trick. I’m not falling for that twice,” he said, slowly stepping closer to me. I stepped back to counter him, fear flooding my bones as I lowered the steak. “Yeah, put the steak down. I’m not even gonna look at the steak.” As the guard spoke, I noticed the potted plant beside him start moving. I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow incredulously. This was Mark’s plan? Becoming a bush? 

“I’m looking at you right in the eyes.” The guard’s gaze flickered from my face to the steak, and he sighed, shrugging a bit. “I looked at the steak.” Suddenly, Mark lept from the plant and tackled the guard in a backward chokehold. 

“Shh…!” He shushed the struggling guard until he went limp, then let him go. As I turned to put the steak away, I jumped in surprise as I realized that not only had my surroundings changed, but Mark was right in front of me. We had entered a large gallery of sorts. 

“Nicely done. All according to plan. And speaking of plan...” he said, crouching down next to one of the many artifacts sealed in a glass container, pulling the plan out of his bag and looking at it. One look at the thing made my heart stop for a split second. I felt like I had seen it before. From where I didn’t know. Everything was familiar, yet unfamiliar at the same time. 

“Looks like we are, uh, eh, yeah. We’re moving on to phase two.” He folded the plan up and stuffed it back in his bag. “Are you ready?” I nodded a bit. 

“On my go.” He looked down at his watch. “Go!” 

While I chose the sensible, sneaky option of skulking around like a seasoned thief, Mark, being as dramatic as he could, rolled around the other side of the display case, stood up, and did cartwheels across the room. We rounded the next display case and Mark pointed at the entrance into the room. 

“Behind you. Behind you.” 

I rolled to the next display case and plastered myself against it, keeping myself as still and small as possible as a guard entered the room. 

“He tracks the intruder,” the guard said, almost like he was roleplaying a scenario he made up, “quiet as a ninja suppressing a fart in church.” He let out two short laughs as he padded across the room. “There she is. Three-legged woman, got you now. Oh, this? It’s just my gun. You’re safe with me, ma’am.” I glanced down as I noticed something at my feet. A baseball. 

“How convenient…” I mused softly, grabbing the ball and throwing it as hard as I could. It sailed through the air and bounced through the same entrance the guard had walked through. Speaking of the guard, he let out a panicked scream and drew his gun.

“I mean, who’s there?” He called, trying to regain his composure. As the sound of the ball bouncing began to fade, he ran back the way he came, calling after it. 

“Come back!”


	6. "One, two, three: security!"

I turned around to look at Mark and found that my surroundings had changed again. We were in another exhibit. It looked like there was a pile of either yarn or laundry to my left. 

“What the fuck?” I whispered. Mark poked his head out from a display on the other side of the room and gave me a thumbs up. 

“Great job, buddy. I’ll meet you over there.” He ducked back behind the display case, then jumped out and landed flat on his face. I groaned slightly. I was actually going through a heist with this guy. His body slowly moved across the floor as if he was being dragged by an unseen force, disappearing behind another display case and then flipping over and over until he was at the next display case.

“All right,” he said, leading the way out of the room. “We’re almost to the vault. Come on. Stay low and stay quiet.”

A chill ran up my spine as I looked over my shoulder to make sure there was no one following us. I then turned back around to find myself still following Mark, but we were now in the main gallery, near the vault. Why was everything changing so suddenly? I grit my teeth as Mark led the way onto a giant chessboard.

“Come on, this way,” Mark said, picking up a white bishop. “We’re almost there. Checkmate.” He placed it down in front of one of the black pawns.

“That’s not how you play chess,” I muttered. Mark seemed to disregard my comment as we got closer to the vault.

“Okay. Oh, I can almost taste it.”

Something beeped, and the vault door opened. Mark grabbed my arm and yanked me behind a pillar, putting one hand over my mouth to shush me - something I was  _ not _ happy with - and all we could do was watch as two guards walked out of the vault.

“You wanna know my favorite thing about this vault?” the first guard said, turning and stopping in front of one of the two green pads that were on either side of the door.

“Go on.”

“You need two keys.”

The second guard walked to the second pad. “One for you, one for me.”

“Okay, here we go.”

“Ready? One, two, three.”

“Security!” They said in unison, locking the vault and beaming at each other. After pulling the keys out of the locks, they went off in two separate directions. Mark finally took his hand off my mouth, and we both slowly walked around the pillar, making sure the guards couldn't see us. Once the guards left the room, Mark spoke.

“Oh, crap. Oh, _crap_ ,” he muttered, walking to the vault door while I was hot on his heels. He led the way to the vault door. “This wasn’t in the plans. There are two keys for this vault. We need to get them from those guards or any guards that are moderately less competent than those.” He pulled his grapple gun from his bag. 

“Why don’t you go back the way we came and why don’t I have a little bit of a chat with that guard over there. Be back in a flash.” He shot the gun and sailed up to the walkway that was above us. I sighed a bit, shaking my head, then turned around to go find one of the guards. Before I could even take a step, I heard a loud clang and a scream, causing me to turn around and witness Mark fall into a pile of boxes. I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose in annoyance. Why did I agree to do this again? Mark climbed out of the pile and grinned at me, seemingly unharmed. 

“Be back in a flash.” He flashed me a grin, some finger guns, and hurried off. 


	7. The best security guard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte meets the absolute best security guard in the world.

“...okay? I’ll...be doing my job,” I muttered, shaking my head and walking down the path the second guard had gone down. Not too far down it, I suddenly heard loud snarling and saw the shadow of a snout on the lit wall. I swallowed hard and stepped back looking around for any sort of animal, only to be met with the sight of a large dog wearing a security uniform. The key to the vault was hanging off of the side of their vest. 

“Awww! Hi, baby!” I cooed, kneeling down and holding out my gloved hand for the dog to sniff. The dog leaned closer, sniffed my hand, then began to lick it, her tail wagging excitedly. I cooed softly to her and pet behind her ears for a few moments before pulling the steak out of my bag and offering it to her. She sniffed the steak and immediately took it, and I took the opportunity to take the key off of her vest. 

“Good girl!” I whispered, standing up. The dog happily scampered off deeper into the museum with the steak in her mouth.

There was another clang and scream, and I slowly turned around to see Mark falling from the walkway above me again. I rolled my eyes as he walked over and showed him the key I had retrieved from the security dog.

“Oh, you got a key,” he said excitedly, holding up his own key and grinning. “I got one, too. Come on. I think these are what we need to get in that vault.” We walked over to the security locks on each side of the vault and inserted the keys. 

“Oh, this is it. You ready? Now on three. One–” 

I turned my key, reveling in the confused look on Mark’s face as the vault buzzed. 

“What the hell? Ah, whatever.” He turned his key as I did the same, and after a chime of confirmation, the vault door slid open.

“After you,” Mark said giddily.


	8. Into the vault

Slowly, I stepped inside and couldn’t help but let out a soft gasp. The vault was huge and had enough room to fit dozens of artifacts inside, but as I looked closer, I noticed there was only one thing inside: a box, covered by a glass case. Mark brushed past me, almost nudging me into the wall, and pulled a glass cutter out of his bag. 

“Oh, this is it. This is really it.” He placed the cutter on the glass and made a circle with it, then unceremoniously pulled the glass off the podium and tossed it behind him. I winced as I heard it shatter, moving closer to him. 

“This is what we’ve been working towards all those years,” he said softly, looking at me “It’s finally ours.” He then turned to the box and grabbed it carefully, a look of pure joy on his face as he pulled it off the podium. As he did, it seemed to… glitch. That’s what best described it. Three other boxes, seemingly stuck between different realities, jumped out of it. One was blue, one was red, and one was green. The glitching happened only for a second, almost like if you blinked, you’d miss it. Mark didn’t act like he noticed it, though he wasn’t exactly looking at it.

My blood froze. 

I knew those glitches. 

I knew those colors. 

For a split second, everything around me seemed to shatter, like a broken mirror -  _ like my  _ **_prison_ ** \- before snapping back to normal. 

“This is gonna change our - Woah, Charlotte, are you okay?” He asked. I waved my hand dismissively. 

“Fine, fine. You were saying?” I said. His eyes lit up. 

“Oh yeah! This box is gonna change our lives forever.” 

That's when the alarms started blaring.


	9. The sewers

Mark jumped slightly. 

“Ah, crap. Um, it’s fine. Uh, this is why we plan,” he said, tucking the box inside his bag and looking around a bit, his eyes lighting up as he noticed something. “Oh! Okay, I see two ways out of here. There just so happens to be a sewer that runs directly beneath this vault.” He gestured to a sewer grate that I somehow didn’t notice when we had entered.

"We could either go through the sewers all sneaky like, or we could go out guns blazing," He said, pulling a flintlock pistol and a lit bomb out of his bag and grinning almost sadistically. "Yeah, I found these bad boys in the pirate exhibit on the way over here, but we gotta choose fast. I think they're on their way, and they're not gonna be friendly when we're in here with the box and the bomb and the gun. So, either one's good. Sewer will probably work all quiet like, but, you know, I like a little action. But stealth is good, too." I shook my head a bit and pointed to the sewer grate. 

“No way I’m going into battle with security guards using old-school weapons,” I said. “The sewer has to drain somewhere.” Mark pouted a bit, waving the flintlock pistol for a second before dropping it. 

“You're no fun. But you might be smart," he said, tossing the lit bomb back into his bag. "If we take the sewer route we might as well be as quiet as humanly--" he bent down and pulled off the sewer grate, grunting and groaning loudly as the loud squeal of metal-on-metal filled the vault. I flinched at the sound and covered my ears. "--as humanly possible." He set down the sewer grate and glared at me. 

"Thanks for the help,” he muttered, holding out his arm and stopping me before I could jump down and take the lead. “After me." He jumped into the hole, a splash sounding as he landed. I followed his lead and hopped down the hole, landing in a rather dense puddle of water. 

“Eww,” I groaned, shaking myself off as light filtered in from somewhere close by. I turned to Mark, who was wiping sewer gunk off his face and couldn’t help but snicker a bit. He glared at me again, this one was more annoyed than before. 

“Shut up,” he muttered, then waved me over as he started walking. “Alright, come on. I think we're on the right path.” He pulled the map out of his bag. "And if I know my plan correctly, and I, uh-" he frowned, noticing that the map was now a wet, soggy mess. He then mashed it into a ball and tossed it somewhere else. “-that's alright. That's okay, because I have an impeccable sense of direction. And I know exactly-"

"Hey, over here!" one of the guards shouted. Startled, I looked around to try and find the source of the voices, only to notice a staircase that seemingly hadn’t been there before. "I think they went into the sewer."

Mark lept face-first into a barrel full of water as the two guards came down the stairs. I ducked behind some barrels that were a little further away, peering out at the guards as they walked past and ducking down as their flashlights shone over my hiding place for a moment.

"Yo, man, I said it. I told them when they built it," the second guard said. "Putting a sewer entrance underneath what is supposed to be the most secure vault in the museum is just grossly irresponsible. You know?"

"Yeah, I mean, I agree with you, but they don't really pay us to think," the first guard said, shining his flashlight around. "But, regardless, they gotta be around here somewhere."

The second guard nodded. "You're right. You know what? You're right. But we need to split up," he waved his gun around, "cover more ground."

"That's a great idea," the first guard said, shoving the other one with his gun. "I love that idea."

The second guard chuckled. "No, you--you're the one who usually has the great ideas."

"No, no, my ideas suck. You have the best ideas every time. Every time."

"Come on."

"No, you always have the greatest ideas."

They looked at each other silently for a couple of seconds before they turned their backs to each other and started searching. I smiled a bit at their camaraderie and waited until they were both gone before sneaking out of my hiding spot. I heard Mark gasping for breath and looked over at the barrel he had been in, snickering a bit. He was covered in sewer water and seaweed, his beanie over his eyes. 

"Oh, God!" He yelped, climbing out of the barrel, falling onto the floor, and groaning in pain. He pulled the beanie up from his eyes and glared up at me. "Next time, you get the barrel." He muttered. I held out my hand for him to take, and after a moment of just staring at me, he grabbed it and stood up, the seaweed still covering him. 

"Okay, all right. Let's keep moving,” he said, starting to walk down the passageway the second guard searched down. "The sewers have to drain somewhere, so all we gotta do is follow the stream until we find the exit. It's that easy. All right, come on"


	10. "You haven't steered me wrong... yet."

We turned a corner and became engulfed in darkness. All I could hear were our sloshing footsteps and occasional exhaled breaths. After a few more minutes of walking, we finally entered a lighter hallway.

"Oh God, a sewer," Mark grumbled, looking back and glaring at me. "Why'd you have to pick a sewer, huh? There's nothing good about a sewer. It's dark. It's dirty. It's damp. Ugh.” 

“Stop being such a drama king about it,” I snapped. “We either jumped down here and got out alive, or went into a firefight with decade-old weapons that were most likely props and got ourselves killed.” He looked a little surprised that I had spoken up at all, shrugged a bit, then looked forward. 

“Oh, well, well, well. Looks like our luck might be changing. I think the tunnel splits off two different ways down here," he said, gesturing to the split path with his flashlight. "So, Charlotte--what?" I heard someone screaming and, not wanting to be found, went to dive into the pile of garbage bags that was to my immediate left. 

“No, not this time. Me!” 

Mark all but shoved me out of the way and dove into the pile. I scrambled to hide around the corner, putting one hand over my mouth to silence my panicked breathing. I heard the panicked footsteps of someone being chased and, as I peered out of my hiding spot, noticed a security guard - the source of the screams - sprinting down the path from the darker tunnel, looking back at whatever was chasing him. 

I exhaled slowly and emerged from my hiding place, looking over at Mark, who was doing his best impression of a trash bag. Once he noticed me staring at him, he climbed out, brushed off the garbage, and raised an eyebrow at me. 

"You wanted me to do that, didn't you?" I shook my head. 

“I was more than happy to take the garbage on this one, but you stopped me,” I replied, raising my hands in surrender.

"Well, could you hand me that rag behind you?" He pointed behind me. I turned around and looked for the rag, and when I was unable to find it, I turned back around. Mark was already wiping his face with it. I sputtered a bit like an engine unable to start and rubbed my eyes. Mark was wearing a grey suit and his hair was slicked back. I stared at him with wide eyes.

_Why did he look so familiar in that suit…?_

"Thanks, buddy. All right." He threw the rag away and started down the tunnel. "Now, whatever that guy was running from, I'm sure it couldn't have been that bad."

He was interrupted by growling and the security guard's screams, and the sounds of flesh being ripped apart. I winced and looked away until the sounds stopped, gagging slightly.

"Uh, or, uh, at least it didn't sound that close. So, um, let's just keep moving." They reached the end of the passage, and Mark looked down each side of the split path. 

"And it looks like we've got two choices in front of us,” he said, standing in front of me and holding out his hands like he was offering me the pills in the Matrix. “The dark tunnel that the security guard just ran down from and then screamed and then died in, or the light tunnel where there's possibly an end to it where it might drain to an escape so we can be scot-free and enjoy our loot. Well, which is it gonna be? Both are good options. Take your pick. You haven't steered me wrong... yet."


	11. Scream for the exit?

I looked at the two tunnels and, after shuddering as a chill shot down my spine, pointed to the darker one. Mark looked puzzled. 

“Oh, uh, ye-yeah. Sure,” he said slowly as another scream echoed through the tunnel. He slowly started walking as I followed close behind, being unable to shake the feeling that I had done this before. “The tunnel with all the--the screaming and the death. That’s--that’s the right choice. That feels right. This--this feels good. This feels good going this way. I like this. I like it a whole lot…” After a few solid minutes of walking, I shivered again and shifted closer to Mark. Something about this rubbed me the wrong way. 

“Oh, I think we need some light,” he mumbled, pulling out a flashlight and flicking it on. His face was suddenly illuminated from not only the flashlight but a sudden beam of light that filtered through the dusty air. “That’s better. Okay, follow me.” I nodded and moved closer, my hand brushing against his suit jacket for a moment. He glanced back at me, raising an eyebrow. 

“You good?” 

“Yeah, I’m...I’m good. Just trying to stick close, y’know? The last thing we’d want is to lose each other,” I replied. He chuckled a bit, nodded, and turned back to face forward. 

“Oh, that exit’s gotta be around here somewhere…” 

He then whirled around to face me, his eyes lighting up. 

“Or, uh--or we could split up! Yeah, that’s a great idea! We should split up, cover more ground. I’ll, uh, keep moving forward and you go back the way we came. And if either of us find the exit, we’ll just, uh--we’ll SCREAM! Scream for the other one!” He said excitedly. “Scream as loud as we can, and we’ll come running for the other one. And, um, yeah, I think that’s a great idea. So, uh, what do you think?”

I stared at him, jaw nearly on the floor. 

“Are you  _ insane _ ?!” I asked. “That’s a horrible idea! I’m not splitting up.” He huffed a bit. 

“Oh. Oh, okay. All right, well, then let’s go...together,” he said, his voice tinged with sarcasm. I glared at him but had no choice but to follow as he continued walking down the tunnel. 

Why was he so bitter about this? 


	12. Rule number one of a horror movie: never split up.

As darkness surrounded us again, I caught a glimpse of a white, vaguely human-shaped blob out of the corner of my eye, and the air around me seemed to reverberate as a low, sinister chuckle echoed through my mind. Before I could even try and say something, Mark and I were suddenly in a lighter, albeit a little more cramped tunnel, with no sign of the blob anywhere. 

“What the fuck was that…?” I whispered, looking around a bit in an attempt to really get my bearings. Mark looked back at me and raised an eyebrow, clearly confused or concerned, then jumped in surprise as a whisper echoed around us. 

_ “We are evil. We will kill you.”  _

It definitely didn’t sound like the voice I had heard before. This one was raspier in contrast to the smooth, almost sultry baritone that I heard in my mind. I swallowed hard and shifted to stand almost completely behind Mark - bad idea, I know - and nudged him forward. 

“Only way to go is forward, my good man,” I said. He nodded and started to walk forward, only to whip back around as another whisper of  _ “We are evil. We will kill you” _ echoed through the tunnel. He looked to be on the verge of panicking. 

“Do you hear that?” He asked. “Eh, probably nothing. Okay, come on.” He was feigning bravery. I could tell. 

_ “We are evil. We will kill you.” _

“Oh, hey. Hey! Look at this.” That got my attention. Mark gestured for me to follow as he slipped into a much less cramped hallway. There was a red door at the end of it, as well as another area off to the right. 

“Uh oh,” I mumbled. “Another split path.” 

“You see what I see?” He asked. “ ‘cause I see an exit. All right, oh, uh…” 

_ “We are evil. We will kill you.”  _

“Okay, I see, um, I see two exits, which means that we really gotta split up now.” 

He gave me a rather disturbing grin, then seemed to drop the act and took one of my hands in his, squeezing it. 

“Oh, come on! It’ll be fun. Or it’ll be easier at least. We’ll just split up for ten minutes. We’ll meet back up here in no time. Everything will be hunky-dory. You like hunky. You like dory. It’ll be great.” I shook my head. 

“Rule number one of a horror movie, my friend: never split up,” I said. “We’re staying together.” Mark pouted and grumbled a bit. 

“Oh, you suck,” he muttered. I glared at him with as much authority as I could muster, but his back was already to me. I walked over to the red door, intent on opening it, but was suddenly bathed in the light from Mark’s flashlight. I jumped in surprise and looked around, noticing that our surroundings had changed again. 

“Yeah. I don’t like the look of this. Stick close. Stay low,” he murmured.


	13. A cult, a cave-in, and gymnastics

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” I murmured, crouching lower and following behind Mark. 

“Something bad happened here. Yeah, I can tell…” As I passed a small alcove, I noticed a human shape in it. Curious, I beckoned Mark over, since he was the one with the light. 

“Woah.” He murmured, shining it into the alcove. There was a security guard with what looked like a burlap sack over their head. Before they could turn to face us, Mark lowered the light and tugged me along. 

“Oh, man.” 

We walked past a few posters that seemed to be advertising something. They were decorated with images of a skull and crossbones, as well as various messages involving murder. 

“Well, that’s--that’s lovely. This is lovely. I love this. Oh, God,” he pulled a poster down and examined it. “The Sewer Cult. We are evil. We will kill you.” He read, looking over at me. We both stared at each other for a moment, mirroring each other’s panic, then he dropped the poster. 

“Um, not the most reassuring recruitment slogan ever, but I think it’s fine. Where there’s a cult, there’s a secret exit.” He led me down the hallway and into a smaller, closet-sized hallway that I didn’t even have to sidle through. Thank God for my newfound skinniness. 

“All we gotta do is find it and we are scot-free outta here, like a bird, like a dream.” There was a sudden rumbling from above us, and I immediately stepped back out of pure fear. 

“LOOK OUT!” Mark shouted as the roof caved in between us. I jumped back to avoid getting buried, falling backward, and landing on my ass. I coughed as the dust settled and I rose to my feet, getting a good look at our predicament. There was a rather large group of boulders blocking me from continuing on the way I was going. Strangely, there was definitely enough room for me to just jump over them if need be...

“You okay?” He asked, shining the flashlight over the boulders and onto my side. I nodded. 

“Yeah, I’m okay. A little startled, but nothing I can’t manage,” I said. He nodded a bit and smiled for a moment before looking around. 

“Man. That was close. But it looks like we both made it. So, now I guess we gotta split up.”

“Was this a ploy to force me into splitting up?” 

“No! Absolutely not. How would I have planned that if it was? It’s okay, though. I’ll keep going this way. I’ll let you know if I find anything. You backtrack. Take one of the other paths that we didn’t take.” 

“No can do, buckaroo. I’m coming with you, no matter what.” 

With that, I took a few steps back, got myself a running start, and vaulted over the boulders with the agility of an Olympic gymnast. He gaped at me like a fish out of water, his eyes wide. 

“How did--when did--what--okay! Okay, so you have hidden acrobatic skills. Thank you. Let’s keep moving. We still got an exit to find and our life to live.” I nodded and let him lead the way into the darkness.


	14. A dove in a cage

As we walked, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Do you know how sometimes you can feel when someone's staring at you? I felt that sensation all around me. I shivered a bit and tried to stay close to Mark, but could barely see him, even with his flashlight.

_"Amelia~"_

I stopped dead in my tracks. There was that voice again. That deep, sultry, smooth voice that seemed to envelop me and, admittedly, send a few spikes of heat down to my core.

"...you know my name?" I whispered.

_"Of course I do. I know exactly who you are, dear, sweet, Amelia~ Your new body doesn't do you enough justice~"_

"Who are you? _Where_ are you?"

 _"Shhh..."_ I flinched, feeling warm breath against my ear, almost as if the owner of the voice was right beside me. " _All will be revealed in time, little dove."_

Before I could say anything more, the darkness began to recede and I could hear Mark's voice. It was slightly muffled as if I was waking up from a deep sleep, but before I tuned in completely to what my partner was saying, I heard the voice speak again, this time lower in pitch than before.

**_"See you soon~"_ **

Shivering, I immediately moved closer to Mark, who was babbling away.

"I love life and living life. Life is good."

There was a whisper of _"we will kill you"_ from somewhere deeper in the tunnel. We had emerged onto a walkway and were currently crouching down to avoid being seen.

"All right, come on. Stay close," Mark's whisper jolted me out of my daze. "We gotta be getting close to an exit somewhere. I peered over the railing, trying to see if there was anything beneath us, then stiffened as I heard a creak and Mark yelping. "Woah. Woah, woah!"

"WOAH!" I screamed. Mark sprinted forward, I fell back, and the middle portion of the walkway fell down into the depths below. 

"Uh, okay," he sighed, both of us wincing as the clang of the walkway echoed through the air. "That was close, uh, but we made it. And it looks like we'll have to split up after all, so that's doubly good. Uh, you go that way-" he pointed behind me at the darkness we had just come from. "-I'll go--wait!" I cut him off by leaping over to his platform and smiling sweetly at him. He stared at me like I had seven heads, then nodded a bit and gestured for me to follow him. 

"Good job. Great. Good job. Thank you. That's great." 


	15. Teasing

" _You're so good._ "

I shuddered, hearing the same entity from earlier speak as Mark and I walked into the darkness again. There was a soft, sultry chuckle that seemed to echo through my bones, making me shiver again and hug my arms to my chest. Surprisingly, nothing followed that.

"Oh, so you're just gonna tease me, now, is that it?" I muttered. 

Another chuckle.

 _"Amelia, if I wanted to tease you..."_ Suddenly, I became very aware of something coiling around my legs. I looked down in alarm to see large, shadowy tendrils stroking my thighs, tantalizingly close to my groin.

 _"...I would have just done this~_ "

I dragged my bottom lip between my teeth and did my best to ignore the tiny shocks of pleasure that rippled through my core as I trudged forward, following Mark's murky outline.

"I appreciate the teasing, but I'm on a mission," I managed to somehow get the words out without moaning. The shadows stilled in their movements before disappearing entirely.

"Thank you. I'll...I'll find you. Somehow."

_"Looking forward to it already, precious~"_

I shuddered again at the way the words were purred out, then squeaked in surprise as I felt breath against the back of my neck. It was a momentary thing, but I knew I was going to be rattled for a bit. Mark and I emerged into the light, and I took a moment to gather my thoughts and calm myself.

"Oh, wow," Mark whispered. "Oh, wow. Okay. So judging by the, uh, decor-" said decor consisting of tattered rags, candles, and animal bones alongside ritual supplies. "-I'm guessing this is the cult's home base, or something they might call home. I don't know too many cults myself, but just an educated guess that this might be where they kind of live." I looked around curiously at all the candles.

"Wonder if we can perform a séance," I mused.

"Why? You got ghost friends you wanna chat with?"

"Mmhm. Specifically, someone I never got to confess something to."

"Ooooh, spill the beans!" He wiggled his eyebrows teasingly. I playfully smacked his shoulder.

"Not a chance. Let's keep moving." He stuck his tongue out at me, then laughed a bit, and kept walking.

"Anyways, let's try to get through as quickly as possible and--actually, I'm thinking this might be the way out," he said, shining his flashlight down a tunnel. He then cast the light onto a sign that was close by. "Oh. Limit one person per tunnel. Will collapse if two people go down a single tunnel. No exceptions." 

Oh no.


	16. Splitting up

I looked over at Mark, who was grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

"Oh, no," he chuckled, stepping closer to me and making me immediately take a step back. I didn't like that look in his eyes. It was almost deranged. "I guess we gotta split up for, uh..." he tossed his flashlight in the air and caught it. "...safety reasons~" I shook my head a bit, causing him to pat my shoulder.

"Aww, come on. It'll be fine. I'll go down, scout ahead, and I'll let you know if any problems come up. And you go back and check to see if anybody's following us. It'll be perfect. Yeah. Come on. For safety." I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and got that strange feeling that I was being watched. I swallowed hard and shifted my weight from foot to foot, only to be thrown out of my thoughts by the entity's voice crooning into my ear.

_"Come to me, Amelia~"_

My face drained of any and all color it had. I'd be able to get my answers...if I split up.

"Alright, fine!" I snapped, trying to regain my composure. "Just stop fucking pressuring me." Mark fist pumped in victory.

"Yes! Okay! Awesome! All right, okay. This is gonna be great. And don't you worry about a thing because our watches are still synchronized," he said cheerfully. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I still didn't have a watch. "That means we're gonna meet back up here in exactly five minutes, no matter what happens. So: you go down that tunnel-" he pointed to the passage behind me. "-I'll go down this tunnel, and if you see anything, and I mean _anything_ out of the ordinary, you just turn that sweet little tuchus around and--"

I heard the clatter of a flashlight hitting stone and whipped around in fear. 

Mark had disappeared. 

Only his flashlight remained. 


	17. A window to the past

Slowly, I turned back around, intent on going down the path before me, only to jolt in surprise. I wasn't in the sewer anymore. I was in an eerily familiar hallway. Paintings lined the walls. I walked over to the first one.

"...Chef..." I murmured, looking up at the painting. It was of Chef the Chef, the head chef of Markiplier Manor. His eyes were crossed out. I shuddered a bit as his warning of _"I thought I told you to stay out of my kitchen"_ echoed through my mind, and looked away, feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket. That was odd...when did I get a cell phone? Curious, I pulled it out, only to see a text from an unknown number.

_"Aren't you tired of it?"_

I blinked at it, shook my head, and tucked the phone back into my pocket, looking at the next painting. Benjamin the Butler, also with his eyes crossed out. The only thing I could hear while looking at the painting was ghostly whispers that vaguely sounded like him. I shook myself out of my daze as my phone vibrated again. After fishing it out of my pocket, I stared at the newest text.

_"Don't you feel like you're running in circles?"_

As a matter of fact, yes. Yes, I did. I felt like I was stuck in an endless loop, and honestly? I just wanted to be free. The next painting was of Abe the Detective. His eyes were crossed out. That seemed to be the pattern. Every person in each painting had their eyes crossed out.

"Ah, the one who made me his partner without my consent," I muttered. "If only you could see me now, Sherlock." I heard a faint _"Maybe I shouldn't have trusted someone so goddamn gorgeous"_ as I continued to stare at the painting, shaking my head as my phone vibrated again.

_"No one seems to question it."_

"Oh, believe me, I've questioned it," I sighed. I walked over to the final painting. The Colonel. _William._ His eyes were crossed out and a large pink mustache was drawn on his face. My eyes brimmed with tears, and I reached out, my fingers brushing against the painting frame.

"...William...I'm so sorry," I whispered, letting a few tears free. As I kept my fingers against the frame, I heard _"I thought it was about time that we got to know each other. Someplace far, far away from the prying eyes of... anyone else"_ echo through my head. One of the few times William and I really had a conversation, even though he seemed to teleport around the manor. My phone vibrated again, and I looked down at it.

_"But I thought you'd see through it."_

I lifted my head and stepped back, wiping my eyes.

"See through what?" I whispered, confused. I looked around for a moment before realizing that I hadn't finished walking. Slowly, I continued down the hallway, shivering as my surroundings grew darker and darker. There was one more painting at the end of the corridor, and as it came into view, my blood ran cold. The Actor. And this, almost mockingly, was the only painting without its eyes crossed out. I felt myself trembling in anger as I could practically hear his voice all around me.

 _"This is not about me. It's about you. And who knows?_ ** _I could be dead tomorrow._** _"_


	18. "Same snake, different skin."

Almost as if I was causing it, the painting began to crumble and disintegrate, making me step back in surprise.

"The fuck-?!" I stopped myself as another voice reverberated through the air.

"Same snake, different skin. Always spinning his yarns, his webs, his _lies._ "

It was the same voice from the tunnels. Sultry, sensual, yet with an underlying ridge of danger beneath it. Slowly, I turned around, coming face to face with...the Entity. My heart stopped for a second before resuming in double time. I couldn't help but stare. He was wearing a white suit that seemed to mimic Mark's with a black undershirt and tie. Noticing my wide-eyed expression, he chuckled a bit, shaking his head.

"I always thought you were trapped in his games, perpetually plunging down the rabbit hole of his stories," he said, walking closer to me and causing me to try and step back in an attempt to counter him, only to be rooted to the spot. "Helpless. _Lost_..." He reached out and almost tenderly caressed my cheek, his voice dropping to a whisper that not only reverberated around my skull but also in the air around me.

**_"I know the feeling."_ **

The gentleness of the touch reminded me of Damien. My heart ached in my chest as he pulled away, his fingertips lingering on my skin for a brief moment. He then stepped back and started walking over to something further in the void, and I was compelled to move my legs and follow.

"Perhaps I'm the crazy one. Perhaps we've met a hundred times already and you simply don't remember it," he mused, standing in front of a desk - when the fuck did that get there?! - that had a glass of wine on it. "Perhaps you're tired of me repeating myself over, and over, and over, and over, and over, **_AND OVER AGAIN!"_** He practically roared the words out, his aura flickering and crackling around him, causing me to flinch out of pure instinct. 

Oh, sweet suffering Shuckles, I was so fucked. 


	19. A glimpse

"Maybe you just miss my pretty face."

He leered at me, grinning a smile that was much too salacious and sadistic for Damien's face.

"It doesn't matter. People like you only want one thing..." He seemed to gitch and split into two. One stood staring at me, while the other, seemingly looking like a hologram, screamed in agony. I stared at him, wide-eyed, as he continued, the second version of him disappearing in an instant. "...and it's disgusting. You want answers."

I shook my head a bit, swallowing hard and trying to speak. No words came out of my mouth, nor did any sounds emit from my throat. He looked at me almost longingly, then reached out, picked up the glass of wine, and took a slow, methodical sip from it. The liquid inside had turned from clear to opaque as soon as he lifted it to his lips.

"Well... games were always _his_ forte... But allow me this one moment of self-indulgence."

The void around us seemed to warp, and suddenly, he was sitting on a table, the Box in his hands. I didn't want to know how he had gotten it, given that it was supposed to be in my bag.

"So much trouble... all for something so small," he whispered, then looked over at me, his eyes as black as the void around us. "Do you really want to know what's inside this Box? The truth? Not the lies he's told you, but the truth?" I swallowed hard and found myself nodding after not too long. He gave me a smile that was all teeth. It didn't hold the warmth of Damien's smiles. I knew that for a fact.

"Well... I know how much you love a good game," he purred, lounging on the table almost seductively, "so, throughout this heist, I've hidden codes, several codes." He flickered out of existence for a moment, reappearing sitting behind the desk.

"Find them all and you'll get your truth. But that's all I'm gonna give you."

That was when I found my voice.

"No. That's not all you're gonna give me." I was surprised by how authoritative and stern I sounded. Maybe a piece of my old persona was still in me. The entity blinked once, almost like he was taken off guard before relaxing back into the predatory, almost eerily relaxed composure he was in.

"Oh? Does the corpse finally speak?" He taunted, voice laced with enough venom to poison me if it could. I shook my head.

"I'm not a corpse anymore," I corrected him. "I'm flesh and blood. I can walk around and not look like one of MC Escher's worst fucking nightmares." He dared to laugh. Er, well, make a sound that was reminiscent of laughter, anyways. Laughing usually went to someone's eyes. Like a spark. His eyes remained like two black voids.

"MC Escher's worst fucking nightmares," he echoed. "Is that truly what you see me as, Amelia?" My heart stopped for a split second.

"There it is again. You said my name. My...my old name. You remember who I used to be...?"

**_"Of_ ** **_course_ ** **_we_ ** **** **_do."_ **

The voice wasn't the entity. 

It was someone else's. 

Two voices. 

A man and a woman. 

Before I could process anything, I was kneeling on the ground, tears streaming down my face. 

For the briefest of moments, I had just heard the voices of the two people I cared the most about. 

And it broke my heart.


	20. The Realization™

I was at a loss for words, softly gasping for breath like a fish out of water. The entity cracked his neck for a moment, his aura seemingly shattering around him before he returned to his composure.

"Of course I remember your old name, my dove," he said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. "How could I forget one of the key components of myself?" I looked up at him, wiping my tears.

"Key components. And yet, not only did you imprison me inside that blasted mirror, but you had the gall, the _audacity_ to throw my body aside like it was nothing. I'm not a part of you. I never was," I said, my voice wavering with leftover tears. "You pushed me out, trapped me in the mirror, and left. You took Damien's form because you knew it would help you succeed in throwing off Mark." He tutted in what seemed like disapproval, grabbing my chin and forcing me to stand.

"You really weren't paying attention, were you?"

I blinked at him, confused. He shook his head and pushed me away with enough force to make me stumble.

"The only reason why I take the form of the mayor is because of you, darling," he crooned the pet name out, his flirtation turning to rage as he continued. "Mark was the one who stole his body and is now using it to wreak havoc." He spit Mark's name out like it was poisonous. I gasped a bit, my jaw-dropping as I realized that he was right.

Holy fuck, he was _right._

Mark - the Actor - had died, be it by suicide or some other way, done something with the entity of the manor, and possessed Damien's body after he and Celine had died in Celine's botched séance. As an act of revenge, a second entity - the one in front of me who was staring me down like he could read my thoughts, void-like orbs practically boring into my soul - fused with Damien, Celine, and myself, then kicked me out for some reason, took the form of Damien and went off to enact revenge on Mark.


	21. Confessions

"So...if Mark's parading around in Damien's body and calls himself Mark...then what are you?" I asked. "What do you go by? Because it can't be Damien, nor can it just be the Entity. You have a name."

"Names are a powerful thing, sweet Amelia," he cooed, clasping his hands behind his back. Before I could fire off a snappy retort, he continued speaking. "But, since you came all the way here, just to find me, I suppose I could oblige you, just this once. An act of apology, if you will."

"Apology? For what?" I raised an eyebrow. He chuckled lowly.

"For sealing you in the mirror and discarding your body, what else? You weren't forced out to save your soul, sweet thing. I forced you out because, to be frank, you didn't blend with the other two. Their darker sides were perfectly in line with me, but you were just...so pure. So righteous. You wouldn't have fit even if you tried."

Darker sides.

Darkness.

"...Dark? Is that your name?" I asked slowly. The entity - Dark - straightened himself almost proudly, giving me a grin.

"Look at you, so smart!~ I knew there was a reason why Damien fancied you."

"He...he what?"

That was new. That was really new.

"Oh, he never got to tell you," he said, patting the top of my head almost mockingly. "You remember those little pet names he used to call you, don't you?"

I blinked once. Pet names...pet names...

"...now that you mention it, he did call me his little monster a few times," I said. "But I just chalked it up to him noticing how crazy I get when I'm drunk. I mean, the last time he saw me completely hammered was the first night in the manor. Before everything fell apart..."

Dark walked over to me and cupped my cheek in his hand, looking down at me almost sympathetically.

"He wanted to tell you," he murmured. "He wanted to tell you, but knew that the time wasn't right."

I felt a few tears spring to the corners of my eyes.

"I really cared about him. He was...he was wonderful. So sweet, so kind...just the perfect person to work with and be around."

"And he felt the same way about you. He was ready to kiss you in the Upside Down, you know. Before his sister interrupted your moment, he would have kissed you right then and there." He caressed my cheek for a moment, then dropped his hand and straightened up, brushing himself off.

"Unfortunate, isn't it?" He hummed. 


	22. "It's groundhog day..."

Part of me wanted to smack the shit out of him for even daring to mention the last time I saw the siblings. But another part of me, the one who still longed for Damien's touch and his voice and especially that long-forgotten kiss, took control. I moved to stand up completely - Dark towered over me, but I didn't care - and grabbed the front of his suit, pulling him down and into a quick kiss, much to his surprise. As quickly as I had initiated, I pulled away and stumbled back a bit, dazed.

_I just did that._

_I just did that?_

_Did I really just do that?_

_Oh, God, I did that._

**_Oh, God, he's gonna kill me._ **

I stared up at Dark, who was staring down at me like a deer in headlights, clearly not expecting the kiss.

"...I'm just gonna-!" I didn't even finish my sentence before I turned tail and bolted.

The void seemed to thicken around me, and my original running speed was reduced to a crawl. It was like running through syrup. There was a loud crack, like the sound of bone snapping, and I suddenly felt Dark's arms coil around my waist and pull me backward, my back hitting his chest with enough force to make me jackknife a bit.

"And just where," he growled, his lips against my ear, "do you think you're going?" I swallowed hard, trembling a bit as my curly brown hair fell into my eyes.

"...back to the heist?" I suggested. Dark's grip tightened.

"You aren't going anywhere until you explain yourself." I swallowed hard.

"I...I just worked off my instincts. It was stupid, yeah, but hey, better late than never." He was silent for a moment before he let out a low, gravely sigh that seemed to reverberate through my bones and pressed an almost tender kiss to my jawline, his stubble roughly tickling my skin.

"Damn you," he muttered. "Damn you and your human instincts."

"What do you-?" I was cut off by his finger against my lips.

"Shhh. Silence. You've made your point and, if you stay here any longer, I can't promise that you'll be able to go back in one piece. One more loop, then you get your answers."

One more loop.

_So we were in a time loop._

"...deal."

Dark let go of me and brushed his hand through my hair. Once he completely pulled away, I reached up and was surprised to feel the soft petals of a rose beneath my fingers.

"Something to remember me by," he said coyly.

The smile he gave me made my cheeks warm up. It wasn't Dark's usual cold smile. It was warmer, sweeter, and seemed to finally reach his eyes. It was clear whose smile that was. It was clear who was in control, as of right now.

"Damien..." I whispered, tearing up. He reached out and gently booped my nose, smiling fondly.

"Amelia," he whispered. "You should get going. I'll see you soon, my little monster."

I smiled shyly in reply as the void closed in around me. With a loud crack, like lightning striking, I reappeared in front of the museum, still wearing my heist outfit - this time with a white rose nestled in my brown hair - and slowly stared up at the entrance, wiping my teary eyes.

"It's groundhog day," I murmured, striding over to the building with a newfound purpose and determination in my eyes.  
  
 _It was time to end this cycle._

_It was time to break the loop._

_It was time to face my fears, face my foes, and roar them down with the fury of a thousand beasts._

_It was time to be the goddamn hero for once._


End file.
